Permission to Purchase and Fly

[werner]

[font=Fixedsys]From: Zoners Trading Consortium
To: Order Council
Topic: permission to fly Order Gunboat

[font=Palatino Linotype]Dear Sirs/Madams,

As your reaction to the letter of intent from our CTO doesn't look very optimistic for us, I took the liberty of the second try to present our reasons and to explain the doubts.

True - we are a trading company. True - we do not intend to take any offensive actions against anyone. But we face the sad necessity of defending our convoys (whether against human species or not) in order to survive and do our jobs. This requires us to be equipped enough to issue proactive defense too, as being a Trader doesn't contradict our aspirations to safety.

Let us look at the numbers. Compared to the Zoner Gunboat, the Order Gunboat offers 100% more firepower (eight gun points compared to four), and 26% more armor. On contrary, in the Zoner Gunboat we have an additional slot for mines - good if you defend yourself, but not very helpful if you try to protect your colleague in a Whale, attacked by swarms of enemies. Swarms which are much stronger equipped and much more numerous than yet a few weeks ago, I might add.

Therefore we decided to turn to our allies for help. We hoped to be treated friendly, especially that we never hesitated to provide to the Order the best aid we could afford (e.g. our battlestar Orendel). The mentioned aid was of course not calculated for exchange of anything (it was a long time ago), I mention it just to show that we do not perceive the ally relation as just another way of getting nice ships. We treat it seriously, and two-sided.

As said at the beginning of my letter -- although I don't feel much of enthusiasm in your replies - I very hope that I managed to state our rations more clearly, and I still hope for a positive processing of our application.

Best regards,
Dr Werner Mazursky
CEO, board member
Zoners Trading Consortium Ltd.